The legendary flip is still something that is a huge part of my FIRST history when I was involved as a student. I had heard ancient stories of the early years of first and the battles that sounded like titans clashing in Plymouth. Oh those were the days. Now I'm a graduate student in college and am no where near a FIRST competition . Sad days. Personally I will like to show and pick team 69 as a team that will be a great asset to an alliance tomorrow. Oh and another legendary rule that everyone thinks was changed due to one robot in one particular year was the Beast I believe when they used velcro even though robots had been using velcro for some time. Anyways its good to see that FIRST has made such great strides and I look forward to working in a school someday that will have a FIRST program. Good luck to everyone

Sean,
I think the tipster is setting himself up for a huge success! The predictions i know of seem to be meant for the elimination rounds. This being said, the defensive Bash-Fests will come out in full force tomorrow afternoon. Remember, waterloo is the regional most well known (in my mind) for removing your arm and strapping on a weight. Expect the gym to be short about 30-100 pounds of iron, depending on how many bots decide to get Down'n DEFENCE (as they say in Canada.

I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
(Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97)

Can we PLEASE put this certain little urban myth to rest? Yes, the Rhode Warriors had a very effective robot flipper on their 1997 robot. But so did a lot of other machines (Team 118's wicked little corner flippers come to mind as well). Flippers were not a unique feature to this one team. And I can say with absolute certainty that the "no tipping" rule that started in 1998 was NOT directed at just this one team. It was a response to the feedback from many teams about having their 6-weeks-worth-of-sweat-and-tears-labor-of-love flipped over in the first 15 seconds of the match by any of a number of robots that developed a strategy of taking out the competition to clear the field and then score.

<snip>

-dave

Okay okay, I will concede that I made too strong a statement by using the term "direct result" But I stand by the statement, in general and I totally reject the label of "little urban myth" in this case.

Yes, there were other teams that had flippers BUT Team 121 that had one of the best flippers if not THE best and they had drivers that were very effective at using it. Even more, they were clearly the most famous team employing the strategy. Other teams (myself included) dreaded the day that we might come up against them. It was a legal strategy and but we lived in fear of it.

While the Game Design Committee may not have made the rule directly in response to this one team, clearly the success that the Rhode Warriors had in using this strategy generated the atmosphere where the GDC had to fish or cut bait. In fact, I recall posts on this very forum where I put it plainly: If this is how the game is going to be played, fine, let's just wait and see the havoc that will be unleashed when Bill, Joe, Raul* and the rest of the great engineers in FIRST shift their focus from playing the game to designing the best flippers in 1998.

The GDC wisely made a rule against intentional flippers in 1998 and the rest is history. Perhaps they would have even without Team #121's excellent robot, strategy & tactics in 1997, but I doubt it.

Joe J.

*Bill is Bill Beatty, Joe is yours truly, and Raul is Raul-the-Magnificent Olivera, though he would not acquire his title of "the Magnificent" until The Rumble at the Rock 1999.

How Raul became The Magnificent. A True Story by Joe J.
Raul was just Raul until 1999, the year with Floppies and the year that alliances became a part of FIRST** In order to get maximum points, the floppy game required robots to be on the puck and to raise floppies high in the air at the end of the match.

Motorola Wildstang's motto that year was "We can go higher... ...no, really! We can go higher." (which was a reference to Wildstang's claim that their 1998 Robot could score over any robot and had never yet been forced to raise to its full height).

At the 1998 Rumble at the Rock, Wildstang had made it to the Elimination Rounds. In the first match of the finals or semifinals (I can't recall), Team #111 was on the puck and had raised high when they fell off the puck like an old growth redwood. Their robot hit the ground in a mass of rubble. It was obvious that they were not coming out for their next match. But Raul had other ideas. To the entire crowd's delight, Raul and his crew managed to put Humpty Dumpty back together again before their Timeout had expired. Overcome with emotion, I jumped down onto the field and kissed Raul full on the face! He was shocked by my audacity. I was shocked by his 5 O'clock Shadow -- that stubble is SHARP ;-)

I christened him Raul-the-Magnificent from that day forth. And so he remains to this day.

JJ

**a direct result (and I use the term advisedly) of some skulduggery involving Chief Delphi's second loss in the double elimination tournament at the Nationals in 1998... ...but I digress, back to Raul-the-not-quite-yet-magnificent.

I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
(Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97)

So far it appears the battle of Waterloo has been pretty evenly split between offensive and defensive matches. And in the semifinals, offense is coming into its own.

SF1-1 won by #1 alliance, 142-30
SF2-2 won by #2 alliance, 76-38
SF1-2 won by #1 alliance, 112-46
SF2-2 won by #2 alliance, 89-62

The finals should be very entertaining, and high scoring.

The finals turned out to be the most defensive of them all. The #2 alliance used strong defensive maneuvers, rack shacking, defensive ringer placement, and spoilers to try and hold up the #1 alliance. They kept them within ramp range, and beat them in the first match, but 1114's lifts in the other matches and 1114 & 2056 dominating the rack was enough for a nice new banner.

__________________
Being correct doesn't mean you don't have to explain yourself.

I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
(Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97)

Okay okay, I will concede that I made too strong a statement by using the term "direct result" But I stand by the statement, in general and I totally reject the label of "little urban myth" in this case.

Yes, there were other teams that had flippers BUT Team 121 that had one of the best flippers if not THE best and they had drivers that were very effective at using it. Even more, they were clearly the most famous team employing the strategy. Other teams (myself included) dreaded the day that we might come up against them. It was a legal strategy and but we lived in fear of it.

While the Game Design Committee may not have made the rule directly in response to this one team, clearly the success that the Rhode Warriors had in using this strategy generated the atmosphere where the GDC had to fish or cut bait. In fact, I recall posts on this very forum where I put it plainly: If this is how the game is going to be played, fine, let's just wait and see the havoc that will be unleashed when Bill, Joe, Raul* and the rest of the great engineers in FIRST shift their focus from playing the game to designing the best flippers in 1998.

The GDC wisely made a rule against intentional flippers in 1998 and the rest is history. Perhaps they would have even without Team #121's excellent robot, strategy & tactics in 1997, but I doubt it.

Joe,
Thanks for your kind words. I am actually glad that your prediction did not come true (for the most part). As you can see from the webstream the finals were very good, and exciting to watch.

So, a simple interpretation gives Buckeye a slight edge in the eliminations, lending credence to the old "Waterloo eliminations: Minus arm, plus dumbbell" theory, but remember that in Buckeye only a select less-than-half of teams (24 of 58) make the eliminations, while in Waterloo almost every team does (24 of 30). (Not really meaning to pick on Buckeye, but hey, Joe J. started it )

I, for one, am quite proud of how far our local teams have come in the past few years. 610 used to be feared for their wedges; for the last two years, they've been scoring balls and ringers like nobody's business. 854 has perfected holonomic drive and now uses it more effectively than almost any team I've seen. 2056 and 2166 have exploded out of nowhere (well, all right, not quite nowhere) with, respectively, some of the coolest autonomous modes and one of the nicest ramps around. And that's leaving out the obvious ones - 188, 1305, and The Robots Formerly Known As The Triplets.

I don't even need to look at the stats to know that Waterloo is now among the best this year. I can't blame Joe for expecting a bash fest, and its certainly surprising the level of competition at Waterloo, given its history.

Boston sucked during the quals, but certainly picked up during the elimination rounds-- ALOT.

Buckeye and San Diego-- who knows..

Great regionals this year (of the ones I've seen):

- BAE
- New Jersey
- Florida
- Great Lakes
- UTC
- Waterloo

With alot of Waterloo teams attending GTR, its shaping up to be a battle between GTR and WMR for the best overall offensive showing this year.

I can't wait to see how the teams fall into alliances at GTR-- where is 48 going to be? will it be 1114 and 2056 together again, going for the double?

I feel compelled to rise to the defence of our much-maligned Waterloo teams, who have really kicked things up a notch this year.

Interesting stats Ian. Though in fairness since there were only two previous waterloo regionals the sample-size for basing a prediction on was pretty small.

It was nice to see such an exciting event at Waterloo, but really isn't all that surprising if you think about it. In general the Canadian teams that go to Waterloo are the ones with "more" resources, since most will take GTR if they can only have one. As a result a large percentage of the Waterloo field *should* have decent resources, which may or may not mean anything.

Also, this year's regional could well be more indicative of what future Waterloo regionals might be like. In 05 this was the first ever regional for the triplets and it seemed they were working out a few bugs. I seem to recall the field being 24 teams so that was 1/8th of the teams. Had they been running like they did the next week at GTR the 05 regional probably would have had better offensive numbers

In 06 on the other hand, the triplets had already been to GLR and were all functioning nearly flawlessly. They were so dominant that in a way it forced teams to try to defend since outscoring them didn't seem like a very good option. These could be a couple of reasons why Waterloo seemed to gain a defensive reputation. If anything it should probably be considered as one of the most unpredictable regionals in terms of gameplay since it's so small that even one or two teams can affect it drastically.